Although it hadn’t been my classroom for a while, I knew it as if it were my own. Every corner, every creak in the ground, the exact spot where three years ago–when it had been my classroom–the last teacher’s dog had puked. Every little change popped out to me.

It was the first day of school and, like every other first day, the teacher was welcoming everyone and asking about their summers. It would be a while before Mr. Johnson would get to me, so I decided to keep observing and taking in the changes he had made to the classroom.

“The blue walls help your concentration,” said Mr. Johnson as he finally approached me, noticing I was looking at them.

“Really? I didn’t know that. It looks really nice.”

“Yeah, thanks. I researched it this summer. It was either this blue or pudgy pink; I figured you guys would like this better, but anyway, hi. It’s nice to see you again.”

I couldn’t avoid a smile spreading across my face. “It’s nice to see you too.”

My backpack was light. Mr. Johnson didn’t make us take anything other than a couple pencils and two notebooks. He was good at getting people to donate most of our school supplies.

I searched around for my desk for approximately 30 seconds (it wasn’t very hard to find anything in such a tiny classroom) and set my backpack down on it. As soon as I turned around Samantha and Martha were greeting me.

“Ah, I missed you like crazy! How are you? How was your summer? Did you have fun? Did you miss me? Isn’t it crazy to be back at school now?”

Samantha, always the excited one.

“Whoa, chill there 20 questions. My summer was great and so am I. It’s really nice to see you too. And how are you, Martha? Did you have a good summer?” I asked.

“It was good. My niece was born and we’re all still really happy and excited about that,” she replied.

We continued talking about the summer and who went camping or swimming, or even to Mexico, and I looked around to see who else was there for our first day back. I could see Samantha and Martha’s other 7th grade classmate, Dallas; Kara, the pastor’s daughter who moved here during the Christmas season last year; and Gabby, Ty and James, the new 5th graders, who seemed a little nervous. It was, after all, their first year in the “big kid” classroom. The only one noticeably missing was Junior, the only 8th grader other than me and my best friend.

There was plenty of catching up to do with everyone, but at 8:30 the school year officially began with worship. After prayer and scripture reading, Mr. Johnson started speaking to us.

“I know you guys are bummed to see the summer leave, but I also know that most of you–” he put his hand up to his mouth in a fist–“cough, cough, Esmirna, have been sitting on your butts the whole time.”

Everyone laughed and agreed. “Hey, you don’t know that!” I claimed.

He looked at me with an Are You Serious expression and said, “Yes, I do.” And I couldn’t deny it, he knew me too well.

“But just remember that school is only as bad as you make it. You can decide if you want to make school a drag or make it fun, it’s up to you. I want this to be the greatest year yet; I want to have fun and learn and grow together. Can we do that? And another friendly reminder, you all have A’s right now, let’s keep it that way. I know you guys can.”

After everyone agreed that they were going to make it a great year, Mr. Johnson started going over the first-day-of-school basics. For someone who’d had eight first days of school, I had to admit that Mr. Johnson’s rules and expectations were pretty easy to handle. Be respectful, be safe, be prepared, be hardworking. Four simple rules that cover every problem a kid could have in the classroom. When other teachers take two days to go over every rule for every circumstance, Mr. Johnson could sum it up with just four. One of the reasons you had to love him.

So it was the beginning of another year. Another year of waking up early, staying up too late, not finishing homework and playing with the kids. What I didn’t know was how different the year would be.  So different, it would change my life completely.

So here’s to you Junior, Samantha, Martha, Dallas, Kara, James, Ty and Gabby. And especially to you, Mr. Johnson. This is our love story.